... word limits.  A perennial.  If it needs ten words, use ten, if it merits 1000, use 1000.  The necessary evil of word limits of university submissions drives me nuts, especially when they claim they want something with depth to it.  I've always used up my 10% margin, and where permitted the option of appendices and attachments.  Now trying to write a journal of theological reflection online in under 500 words a go is proving a challenge and a half - not helped by having been trained to write them at ~2k words a go!  Ah well, precis skills to be honed before final submission methinks.

Today I've been doing my homework for my mentoring course and reading part of the set text, The Potter's Rib, Brian A Williams, pub. Routledge, 2005.  The set chapter, one of the longest in the book (of course!) at around sixty pages, talks about the pastor as mentor - a key theme of the course.  We were asked to identify and consider the images offered by the writer and to come prepared to discuss these on Monday.

I guess there are two dominant images, the titular 'potter's rib' (a device used by potters to assist them in forming the clay) and the midwife.  It seemed to me there were a whole host of other metaphors and models, some explicit, some implicit, including, roughly in the order they arise...

• friend
• host
• companion
• accompanier
• eyes
• liberator
• encourager
• ears
• creator of space
• confessor
• mouth/voice
• conversation partner
• poet
• helper
• midwife
• paraclete/advocate
• model/pattern/example/'type'
• artist
• dance partner
• bearer of gladness

Obviously each of these embraces aspects of the dominant metaphors, but they seem to add other ideas too.  As I was mulling them over, and finding myself once more recollecting the 1 Corinthinns 12 body image and the need for diversity in unity, I doodled a 'mini-mentor' based on some of these ideas.  (Just before anyone assumes she's standing in a missionary-sized cooking pot, she isn't, it's a clay pot being formed... obviously)

She is a she because most midwives are women.  She has enormous eyes, ears, mouth, hands, feet to reflect the attributes, not because she's a wolf in grandma's clothing.   She's smiling because she's glad.  Hopefully the dove, pencil and music notes are self evident.

This morning I took my foot pump to church, as one does, to inflate the giant Fairtrade banana and giant cup of Fairtrade coffee that will be visual aids for tomorrow's service.  I am fairly sure the sizes of the two are on pretty much the same scale, which is fine until it comes to blowing them up!  It is fair to say that my legs got a good work-out this morning as it took around half an hour's work to get the two done.  A moment's panic when the size of the inflated cup was remarkably similar to the size of the vestry door, but it will go through - just.  Maybe next year they could make a Fairtrade grape, just one, not a whole bunch, that could be inflated in seconds...  As it is I am trying to think where I can safely store these items inflated as the thought of deflating them and doing it all again next year lacks appeal.

Another visual aid I have is a whole selection of fairtrade chocolate bars - Divine, Maya Gold, Supermarket own, Cadbury Dairy Milk, four finger Kitkat (for some reason the two finger and chunky ones aren't).  As well as the 'big swap' we now seem to have the big choice - do we buy Divine or do we buy Cadbury?  Do we buy Dubble or opt for Green and Blacks?  Is it possible that Fairtrade is becoming a victim of its own success and a new competitive market is opening up among the Fairtrade brands?  Intuitively it seems good that more and more products are more ethically produced (including animal and planet welfare considerations) but what happens if the goal of it all being this way is reached?  Would the ethical production prove sustainable or would 'market forces' (consumer power) actually tip it back to the old ways, as brands sought to undercut one another to keep market share?  I would hope not, it would be amazing to have a world where justice for all was achieved.  Maybe the Jewish folk lore philosophy that one day like this would trigger Messiah's arrival, or the occasionally voiced Christian view that we can hasten Christ's return by our actions mean that were it done then it could never be undone.  In the meantime, I find it a pleasant, of bizarre, situation that when I go to my local supermarket instead of my choice being 'Fairtrade or not' I can choose among the own label products such as tea, coffee, sugar, bananas etc . knwoing they are all fairly traded.

This evening the last bag of stuff got emptied, sorted and put away -at least enough for me to say I have now opened and emptied every bag and box that moved here.  Yes, there is stuff that lives in boxes/crates such as craft equipment, face paints etc, and there is a whole massive pile of old services to be recycled (as in the paper sent for recycling not re-used here!  I have 95% on disc so if I ever did want to re-use them I could) but I can now see floor in all rooms.

After five years of living with a spare church in my house, at the moment I have a spare kitchen in my kitchen (white goods from store to a flat with integated appliances) but once they have been rehomed and the removers have taken away their boxes it will feel like a real home.

A week on Saturday is the grand manse warming, to which Millie Mole (my puppet) has invited all her friends, so between now and then I have to hang pictures, shuffle CDs into order and child proof the breakables.  All good fun.

This morning I was doing an e-search of the 'Good News Bible' to find verses that contained 'child' or 'children'.  Imagine my horror when I landed on Proverbs 22:15 and it was rendered thus:

Children just naturally do silly, careless things, but a good spanking will teach them how to behave. (GNB)

This isn't just bad translation, its very scary interpretation.  So, I was distracted into a time of web-trawling, using Bible Gateway to check other translations, trying to find out just what the 'rod of disicpline' might have been or meant and finding some highly disturbing far right American Christian websites along the way - one even telling you what size of 'switch' you needed for a baby under a year old. Very scary indeed.

Most Bible translations opt for something such as

Young people are prone to foolishness and fads; the cure comes through tough-minded discipline. (The Message)

or

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from them. (NIV)

Several online commentators see the 'rod of discipline' as figurative, one comparing it to the 'long arm of the law.'  Those who see it as literal, and even those who see it as allied to corporal punishment, see its referent as 'grown up children' and note that since we don't stone our wilfully children to death (Deuteronomy 21) why would we spank them?

'Firm discipline' and 'tough love' are one thing, violence against children is another and we do well to beware any bad translations that tell us to 'spank' when the intent is otherwise.

Then there's Proverbs 23:13-14 too often cited as 'a good spanking never killed anyone'... if the rod in this context can't kill then it clearly isn't a 'good spanking' that is being alluded to.  The GNB sacrily renders this verse as

Don't hesitate to disicpline children.  A good spanking won't kill them.

Well actually yes it might, and alas plenty of news reports show it does.  Better is the CEV which says

Don't fail to correct your children. You won't kill them by being firm, and it may even save their lives. (CEV)

Anyway, enough of the Bad-News Good-News Bible - I have to find some useful passages for next week.

(NB this post corrected due to earlier error)